


The Past is a Ghost, the Future a Dream

by stellanti_nocte



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellanti_nocte/pseuds/stellanti_nocte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Draco leaves Harry on the Hogwarts Express under the invisibility cloak at the beginning of sixth year, Luna doesn’t find him. The train goes back to Platform 9 ¾ to pick up a new load of children, from a different time…Harry/Regulus</p>
<p>Written for the rarepair_shorts Number Fest on LJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past is a Ghost, the Future a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> The basic idea is that the Hogwarts Express is continuously bringing students to and from Hogwarts because it is not trapped by linear time. After it drops off Harry’s generation of students, it goes back to bring his parent’s generation of students to Hogwarts. 
> 
> Title taken from Bill Cosby’s quote: “The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.”

Harry felt the invisibility cloak drape over him and cringed internally. It would be a miracle if someone found him. He tried not to think about what would happen if he wasn’t found. 

Did the train go back to Platform 9 ¾? It certainly didn’t stay at Hogwarts for the term. He guessed that he could find some other way to get back to Hogwarts once the train arrived at the platform. If he managed to get out of Malfoy’s body bind. 

Maybe house elves cleaned the train at some point and would find him? 

After what seemed like hours the train began to move again, picking up speed as it left the school. A spike of panic shot through Harry at the thought of leaving the place he called home so soon. He hadn’t even seen the castle and already he was leaving. Merlin, how did he get himself into these situations? Although, his anger had gotten the better of him this time. He really should have been more careful. 

But he just couldn’t help it. He was lost and filled with self-hatred; all he wanted to do was go back to fifth year and start over. It was all he could think about. 

The train ride passed slowly, giving Harry ample time to stew in his self-disgust. His mind replayed the scenes of last year over and over, berating his decisions and thinking of all the things he could have done differently. There was just so much he’d messed up. He couldn’t pin point where everything had truly started to go downhill. 

At some point, Harry became aware that the train had stopped moving. He sighed, knowing that he was in for a long wait before someone found him, and a horrific lecture when all this was through. Merlin, couldn’t he get one year in which he didn’t fuck everything up? Hadn’t last year been enough to last a lifetime? 

Voices echoed faintly from the train car next to the one he was in and Harry wished desperately that he could give some sort of signal to alert them to his presence. But the voices faded away and Harry was left in silence once more.

-^-^-^-

Regulus opened the door to the last train car, pleased to see it was empty. He was early, as always, and only a few students had boarded the Hogwarts Express, mostly filling the compartments in the front of the train. Regulus always sat at the very back; it was private there and Regulus liked that. 

He nearly slammed his face into the ground as he tripped over something in the aisle. With a snarl, he whipped around to face the obstacle with his wand held in front of him. 

There was nothing there. 

Regulus narrowed his eyes and glanced around the compartment. Was someone having him on? Oh, it had better not be Sirius—!

Something rustled underneath his shoe and Regulus bent down to cautiously examine the seemingly empty floor. He reached out and touched the carpet, only to find something with a silky texture in its place. His hand gripped the fabric and pulled it up, expecting something grotesque as was usual with his older brother’s pranks. 

What he found was a boy his age lying petrified on the floor. 

Regulus observed him curiously. The boy was wearing strange clothes and ugly round glasses. His green eyes stared unseeingly upward and there was a bruise blossoming on his jaw. He had probably been beaten and petrified, left to be found by someone. Regulus looked at the strange fabric in his hand curiously; or perhaps he wasn’t meant to be found at all. 

The boy’s wand was nowhere in sight. 

It was that last observation that prompted Regulus to cast a _Finite_ on the body bind spell. Without his wand, the boy was no threat to him. 

-^-^-^-

Harry twitched and then relaxed as his muscles were now allowed to move. Finally! He sat up with some difficulty, body stiff from being frozen in place for several hours. He looked up at his helper, intending to thank them, and felt his jaw drop instead. He almost blurted out “Sirius?” in his shock. However, after a closer look, the boy in front of him was clearly not his godfather. That left only one other person…

“Er. Thank you. Um…” The boy—Harry was reluctant to give him the name he knew he must bear—raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Regulus,” he stated with a blank face. Harry nodded slowly and stood. He was unsure of how this was possible. He was unsure if he even wanted to know. 

“Harry,” he said awkwardly, looking around the train car as if something to say would appear in the framework. Regulus simply nodded.

“I shall remember your name. You’ll owe me a debt for this, of course.” 

Harry grimaced, having forgotten that Sirius’ younger brother had been sorted into Slytherin. However, if he had somehow traveled to the past, then he would eventually go back to his right time where Regulus was dead an unable to capitalize on Harry’s debt. 

He hoped. 

Oh, Merlin, he was going to be able to go back, right?

Regulus must have noticed his panicked expression because he smirked sadistically and turned to leave. Harry grabbed his robe sleeve in a fit of desperation. 

“What year is it?” he blurted out. _Please say 1996, please say 1996!_

“…1977,” Regulus stated, giving Harry a strange look. Harry’s expression crumbled and he breathed deeply, trying not to hyperventilate. Sure, he’d ended up in crazy situations before, even life threatening ones, but this was different. He wasn’t even in the right time anymore. He didn’t know anyone in this time, he didn’t belong here. 

He had to get back. 

Sounds filled the silence as students boarded the train and took compartments in the train car in front of theirs. Regulus glanced up at the door before grabbing Harry’s arm and dragging him into the last compartment on the left. He shut and locked the door, warding it with all kinds of spells that Harry didn’t care to pay attention to. When Regulus sat down across from Harry, the green-eyed boy had calmed down a bit, determination to return to his proper time overcoming the panic. 

“Why did you ask me for the date?” The Slytherin asked with a hard gleam in his eyes. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Harry said, waving a negligent hand and trying to appear nonchalant. He failed miserably and Regulus looked like he was prepared to push until Harry answered. Desperate to change the subject, Harry blurted out the first thing that came to mind. 

“What would you say if I told you that I killed your brother?” Regulus’ eyes widened and Harry felt the sudden desire to melt into the wall. 

“What?” Regulus asked, for once not hiding his confusion and shock. Well, at least it had diverted his attention from their previous topic. With that in mind, Harry launched into the entire story of his fifth year. Regulus listened intently and remained quiet for some time after. Neither boys noticed that the train had left the platform. 

“I’m to blame, aren’t I?” Harry whispered into the silence. 

Deep down, Harry knew that this was something he needed. To have someone who was not involved in the event give him an honest opinion. 

“No,” Regulus spoke, looking Harry in the eyes. “I think that there are several guilty parties involved—including my foolish brother—but I do not believe that you did anything wrong.”

Harry would have thought that the words would be more liberating coming from Sirius himself, but somehow it was enough to hear it from the man’s younger brother. Harry’s shoulders sagged with a lifted weight. 

“All I could think about was going back, somehow, and fixing everything,” he confessed, staring down at his hands. There was a pause, before Regulus’ hand gently rested on top of his head. Harry looked up in surprise as the boy’s fingers carded through his hair. 

“We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it.*”

Harry wished someone had told him that in his own time. The train reached Hogwarts and Harry stood. His instincts were telling him that he would find himself back in his own time once he reached the castle. Regulus and he walked quietly off of the train and down the wooden platform toward the carriages. 

Harry turned to Regulus and held his hand out to shake. 

With one last look at the boy who would be dead once Harry returned, he stepped off of the platform. Wards he hadn’t noticed before passed over him, welcoming him back to 1996. He shivered as Regulus’ soft words slithered after him and into his rightful time. 

“You owe me two debts now, Harry…”

**Author's Note:**

> * Taken from the quote: “It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.” – George Harrison


End file.
